“You’re both creatures of both. Powering up one energy or the other for a creature who lives in a perfect balance is. . .” She shrugs. “It’s a gamble.”
“Try it on me first,” Izzy says. “If you can blast the dark from me, and I survive, then it’ll work for Whitney.”
“I forbid it,” Leonid says.
“It’s my job as her sister.”
“You two are tiring.” Baba Yaga goes back to pacing.
“I can’t have her death be something I could stop.” Izzy grabs Baba Yaga’s hand. “Please.”
“I told you this was her only chance at surviving,” Baba Yaga yanks her hand free. “You sewed all your hopes and dreams on it.” And she’s back to pacing again.
“Why are you helping me?” I ask. “And don’t say it’s for Leonid. You’re fond of him, but that’s not why you’re doing this.”
Baba Yaga sighs. “It’s because the times the horsemen are awake are the hardest on us, beings of pure light energy. They do serve a purpose, but the balancing is painful for us and for the earth itself. If we can cut their sojourn here short, I’d like to.”
It feels like that’s not everything, but I can’t think why else she’d risk her power by fighting Xolotl. I watch Baba Yaga as she transports us from one place to the next. She’s weakening visibly, and she sends increasingly frequent messages to Lechuza, entreating her to hurry, basically.
When we portal to Jersey, which is really freaking cold, Leonid and Izzy run off to get us burgers. While he’s gone, I take my chance to talk to Baba Yaga without him around. “Why are you really helping us?”
She frowns.
“For thousands of years, you witches have watched as the horsemen woke and you’ve done nothing, waiting for them to go to sleep. You’ve never worked against them—it’s the balance you’re part of. Right?”
Her furrowed brow deepens.
“But this time, you’re going up against Xolotl himself. I watched him with his brothers—two against one. He wasn’t afraid.”
“He was the first,” Baba Yaga says. “He stood alone for a long time.” She sighs. “I thought he’d always be alone. Four of us, and one of him, balancing the life we created so it didn’t overgrow and damage the earth.”
“And?”
“And he did his task and went to sleep.” She frowns. “But he became more and more detached. He felt like. . .we stayed very far from him. His energy grew more and more dark and disconnected from the earth until. . .”
“Until?”
“Until I met Rurik.” She sighs. “Something about my mixture of our life-giving power with the humans who populate the earth threw off the balance of light. It gave us an edge. Xolotl wasn’t sure why, but he felt imbalanced. He killed far more than he should have in that round, and when he slept, there was a massive boom that we all felt. When he woke again, it was with brothers.”
“You caused the horsemen to exist.”
Baba Yaga frowns. “I’m not sure, but perhaps.”
“You increased humanity’s suffering.”
She purses her lips. “I’m not saying that, but every action has an offsetting, balancing reaction. In my case, the love I thought I’d found was false, but its fruit was not. My beloved Rurik betrayed me, but my child never did. I think that’s how the world works. What’s created always has a cost, and it was one I willingly paid. But when, a thousand years later, Lechuza helped me to protect my precious child, that also had consequences. She spent time interacting with Thanatos.” Her lips compress.
“And then along came us.”
She sighs.
“But now, you’re doing something again. You’re risking the balance again.”
She shakes her head. “Wrong, girl. My actions in loving Rurik, that was something. Then protecting my child, again, but this time, it’s out of my hands. Those past decisions forced me here, where to protect my Leonid and his beloved, to keep their pure and enduring love safe, I have no choice but to—” Her mouth snaps shut.
And I realize she believes she’s going to die when she faces Xolotl.
But she’s doing it anyway.
